The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

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Friday, October 9, 2015

Why is the Obama administration silent in the face of Palestinian incitement and depravity?

The wave of terror attacks that Israel has experienced in
recent days can be directly attributed to the leaders of the Palestinian
Authority, Israel’s supposed peace partner. They are no more a peace
partner than the Nazis were “peace partners” to the British Labour
government, circa 1938. The person who bears chief responsibility for
the sudden surge of violence is self-styled “president” Mahmoud Abbas,
the autocrat whose term of office as president of the PA expired six
years ago. His banal and vitriolic rhetoric before world leaders at the
UN General Assembly on September 26 amounted to nothing more than the
acerbic rantings of an old, washed up has-been filled with deep-seated,
anti-Semitic hate and bile. What more can one expect from an avowed Holocaust denier.

Abbas’s malevolent UN address was also aimed at the Palestinian street
and represented a continuation of the rabid incitement so prevalent
within the echelons of the Palestinian Authority and its media stooges.
While the incitement – which often crosses over to blatant
anti-Semitism – is disturbing, more disturbing is the fact that the
Obama administration and the EU, who are responsible for subsidizing the
Palestinian Authority, remain silent in the face of the most despicable
anti-Semitic calumnies, reminiscent of speeches made by Joseph
Goebbels. It is almost as if the West views the Palestinians as
small-minded infants, incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, good
from bad.

Taking cue from its leaders, Palestinian terrorists
began their orgy of violence with the brutal slaying of Eitam and
Na'ama Henkin, an accomplished young couple in their 30s who were guilty
of driving while Jewish. They were brutally gunned down by a Hamas cell
of five at close range, right in front of their hysterical four young
children who were seated in the back of the couple’s car. The State
Department confirmed that Eitam Henkin was a United States citizen.

In a most fortunate twist of fate, one of the gunmen accidentally shot
and wounded his murderous colleague terminating the rampage
prematurely. Security officials believe
that but for the accidental shooting, all of the car’s occupants would
have been slaughtered. The handgun dropped at the scene enabled Israel’s
security forces to track down and arrest all five suspects including
the ringleader as well as the wounded terrorist, who was recuperating in
a PA hospital located in the Arab occupied city of Shechem (Nablus).
Eitam and Na’ama gave life to four children. The Palestinians
responsible for the cowardly attack – Abbas included – created four
orphans.

On October 3, Palestinian terrorists struck again,
this time in Jerusalem’s Old City near the Lion’s Gate. A crazed
Palestinian, incited by the Palestinian leadership went on a stabbing
rampage, killing two civilians and wounding two others, including a
woman and infant before being neutralized. The traumatized wounded
female related
how she had asked Arab passersby for assistance and they in turn
responded by spitting at her, laughing at her plight and wishing her
death. One even slapped her. Her version of events was corroborated by
video recorded on closed circuit TV and security officials have
announced that they have already identified the passersby and intend to
arrest them.

This post-stabbing aspect of the Lion’s Gate attack is perhaps just
as shocking as the murders themselves, as it demonstrates an appalling
level of depraved indifference so prevalent in Palestinian society. On
the other hand, we should expect no less from a society imbibed with
hate and xenophobia, one that celebrates murder and suicide (or
“martyrdom operations” in Palestinian lexicon) and names streets and public places after people who in the West would be locked up in institutions housing the criminally insane.

Today marked a new level of Palestinian violence, registering at least
six attempted acts of terror. Near the Arab occupied settlement of Bet
Sahour, Palestinian terrorists ambushed
an Israeli female motorist on her way to work in Jerusalem, subjecting
her vehicle to a barrage of stones. They then attempted to drag the
disoriented motorist from her car in an effort to lynch her. She
succeeded in fighting them off and managed to miraculously escape with
only minor injuries.

In Kiryat Gat, Petach Tikvah and Jerusalem, terrorists carried out non-fatal stabbing attacks and near Ma’ale Adumin,
a terrorist tried to murder soldiers who were manning a checkpoint by
ramming his car into them. The perpetrators in the aforementioned cases
were all quickly neutralized thanks to the rapid reaction of the
security forces and Israeli civilian passersby, but the spike in
violence merely underscores the fact that the two-state paradigm,
repeated ad-nauseam by the Obama administration and other terror
apologists in the EU, is dead. The very notion of ceding land to an
entity so entrenched in mindless hatred is not only pointless, it
represents the zenith of national suicide.

The Obama
administration appears utterly blind to this axiom. Some might argue,
with some justification, that the administration is cognizant of the
inherent danger involved in the creation of a Palestinian state jutting
into Israel’s heartland like a bone in the throat and is deliberately
scheming to weaken Israel. Either way, Israel must act resolutely in the
face of pure evil by stating unequivocally that it will never yield to
terror, will never negotiate with those who support terror and will
never yield to political blackmail imposed upon it by the Obama
administration.Ari Lieberman is an attorney and former prosecutor who has authored numerous articles
and publications on matters concerning the Middle East and is
considered an authority on geo-political and military developments
affecting the region.Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/260387/palestinian-terror-wave-brutal-attacks-escalate%C2%A0-ari-lieberman Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is attempting to make political gains by outflanking his opponents and problems on the domestic front, while threatening a descent into political chaos – that is, an intifada-type confrontation.

On September 30, 2015, Abbas gave a speech to the United Nations General Assembly[1] in which he outlined the unilateral steps he intends to take to achieve Palestinian sovereignty in the territories and east Jerusalem without reaching a peace agreement with Israel.

Abbas denied the Jewish people’s historical and religious bond with the Land of Israel and Jews’ right to worship on the Temple Mount.

Abbas revealed his consistent support for terror. Thousands of Palestinian prisoners are serving time in Israel after being convicted of murdering Jews, attempted murder or abetting the murder of Jews. Abbas demanded that Israel free all the Palestinian terrorists.

The Palestinian Authority glorifies the deeds of the Palestinian terrorist “prisoners,” portrays them as “national heroes,” and grants them financial and social assistance for life.

On September 30, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas gave a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in which he outlined the unilateral steps he intends to take to achieve Palestinian sovereignty in the territories and east Jerusalem without reaching a peace agreement with Israel.

Abbas’s speech revealed his basic stance, which includes unequivocal support for terror, a racist attitude toward the Jewish people, an entrenched hatred for Israel, and a will to destroy it. The following are the main points of the speech.

Denying the Jewish people’s historical and religious bond with the Land of Israel and Jews’ right to worship on the Temple Mount

“Palestine is the land of holiness and peace, the birthplace of Jesus the emissary of love and the place of Muhammad’s ascent to heaven,” Abbas said. He pointedly refrained, as in his previous addresses, from mentioning that the land is also holy to the Jewish people whose history has been entwined with it for millennia.

Abbas also averred that Israel seeks —

“…to create a new reality [including allowing Jews to worship on the Temple Mount]…. The Israeli government is acting to implement this program in violation of the situation before and since 1967, and it is therefore committing a major error because we will not agree to this, and our Palestinian people will not accept the implementation of this plan, which inflames the feelings of the Palestinians and the Muslims everywhere…. It will transform the conflict from a political conflict to a religious one and wreak havoc in Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied Palestinian land.”

Thus, Abbas declared that the Palestinians will not tolerate Jewish religious activity on the Temple Mount.

Israel is accused of a blood libel

Abbas accused Israel of terror, abetting terror, and failing to enforce anti-terror laws. As he put it —

“The extremists…burned an entire Palestinian family in Kfar Duma on the West Bank…. And that was not the first crime; previously they burned and then murdered the Palestinian boy Muhammad Abu Khdeir in Jerusalem, and the boy Muhammad al-Dura in Gaza [September 2000], and thousands before them were killed in Gaza and the West Bank, and we still remember the Deir Yassin massacre [April 1948], and those are crimes that went unpunished. How long will Israel remain above international law and unaccountable? How long?”

Abbas said further on this topic —

“We will not respond in kind to the Israeli hatred and the cruelty of the occupation; we are acting to spread the culture of peace and coexistence between our people and the region…. This cannot abide the continuation of occupation and settlement, the racist separation fence, the burning of human beings and houses of prayer and homes, and the killing of young people, children, and infants, the burning of agricultural produce and arrests without indictment or trial.”

Abbas is brazenly lying here. Although there have been terror attacks by Jews, they receive no official support in Israel. On the contrary, the law-enforcement agencies investigate, prosecute, and punish Jews convicted of such offenses against Palestinians. For example, the murderers of the youth Muhammad Abu Khdeir have been arrested and charged, and suspects in the murder of the Palestinian family at Duma have been placed under administrative detention for lack of evidence that can be used in court.

Support for Palestinian terror

Abbas asked: “Has the time not come for thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israel to see the light of freedom and live with their families?” Here he revealed his consistent support for terror. Thousands of Palestinian prisoners are serving time in Israel after being convicted of murdering Jews, abetting their murder, or attempting to murder them. Some dispatched suicide bombers; others were would-be suicide bombers who were apprehended in time. The Palestinians imprisoned in Israel on terror charges come from all the Palestinian organizations, as well as branches of Al-Qaeda and ISIS. Abbas demands that Israel free all the Palestinian terrorists, whom he regards as deserving of freedom.

In marked contrast to Israel and Jewish terrorists, the Palestinian Authority glorifies the deeds of the Palestinian terrorist “prisoners,” portrays them as “national heroes,” and grants them financial and social assistance for life2 while educating the young to emulate them.Hamas master bomb-maker, Abdullah al-Barghouti, serving 67 life sentences, received approximately 250,000 Israeli shekels from the Palestinian Authority.

Abbas stated further that “Israeli governments have passed so many repressive laws that are official governmental edicts, and the latest among them are orders to fire live bullets and to arrest and abuse peaceful Palestinian demonstrators. Where will it lead, and why?”

Here, too, Abbas reveals his attitude toward terror. “Peaceful” is how he portrays the life-endangering hurling of rocks at passing Israeli vehicles, throwing firebombs at Jews’ houses, stabbing civilian Jews, or running them over with vehicles. Israel has not issued any orders to “abuse” Palestinian demonstrators; instead it has ordered its security forces to act in accordance with the threats they confront, particularly when life-threatening threats are involved.

The phased plan for Israel’s destruction

Abbas said:

“My people put their hopes in the countries of this organization [the United Nations] that they will win their freedom, independence, and sovereignty, so that they can realize their goal and their right to a state of their own just like the other peoples of the world, and also solve the problems of their refugees in accordance with UN Resolution 194 and the Arab Peace Initiative. Is that too much?”

Beneath the moderate guise that Abbas tries to project is a Palestinian leader who unreservedly supports terror and demands to implement what the Palestinians call the “right of return.” What the Palestinians mean by “right of return” according to Resolution 194 and the Arab Peace Initiative is simple enough and was ratified as an official law by the Palestinian parliament with Abbas’s approval.

According to the 2008 Law of the Right of Return of the Palestinian Refugees3:

The right of return of the Palestinian refugees to their homes and property, while receiving compensation for their suffering, is an inalienable and enshrined right that cannot be compromised, replaced, reconsidered, interpreted otherwise, or subjected to a referendum.

The right of return is natural, personal, collective, civil, political, passed on from father to son; it is not nullified by the passage of time or by the signing of any agreement and it cannot be abolished or waived in any way.

The Palestinian refugees shall not be resettled or displaced as an alternative to the right of return.

Anyone who violates the provisions of this Act shall be guilty of the crime of treason and will be subject to all criminal and civil penalties prescribed for this crime.

Anything that contradicts this law is considered null and void, and any legislation or agreement that will derogate from the right of return or contradict the provisions of this Act shall be deemed null and void.

In other words, even after an Israeli withdrawal to 1967 borders and the establishment of a fully sovereign Palestinian state, the conflict will remain unchanged and Palestine will demand the “return” to Israel of the millions of refugees and their descendants. The Palestinian demand for “return” entails the transfer of millions of Jews from their homes and the end of the state of Israel.

Demanding international protection

In Abbas’s words–

“The continuation of the present situation is unacceptable…. We will not agree to temporary solutions or to small, divided statelets…. We will demand an international umbrella that will oversee the ending of this occupation in keeping with the legitimate international resolutions, and until that time I demand of the United Nations, of the secretary-general, of the president of the General Assembly, that a mechanism of international protection be provided to our Palestinian people consistent with international humanitarian law. We request your protection, we request protection, we need international protection, we cannot continue in this situation, since the attacks come from every direction, we request, we need international protection.”

Abbas did not express sorrow or regret over the mounting Palestinian terror against Jews. He did not protest the repressive rule and terror of Hamas in Palestinian Gaza, nor Hamas’ aim of violently overthrowing his regime in the West Bank. Nor did he mention that it is only Israel’s presence in the main parts of the West Bank that keeps his government in existence. Abbas’ rule is confined to the West Bank and is totally absent from Gaza. Under the current circumstances, a request for international protection is actually a request that the international community provide shelter and patronage to Palestinian terror organizations.

Preparing for a future confrontation with Israel

Abbas stated further —

“The Israeli government insists on working to destroy the two-state solution and establish two regimes: on the one hand, an apartheid regime that it currently implements against the Palestinians in the occupied state of Palestine, and on the other, a regime of its own that provides great largess to the Israeli settlers ….

“We announce that we can no longer uphold these agreements and that Israel must bear full responsibility as the occupying power, because the current situation cannot continue, and the Palestinian Central Council resolutions of last March are clear and binding….

“The state of Palestine within the borders of June 4, 1967, with its capital of east Jerusalem, is a state under occupation…. The current situation cannot continue, and we will begin peacefully and legally implementing the recognition of this state so that the Palestinian National Authority can provide a bridge for the Palestinian people from occupation to independence; or, alternatively, Israel will bear the responsibility for the occupation, the full responsibility.”

Abbas, who is under public threat by Hamas, which sees him and his cronies as illegitimate leaders who deserve to be tossed in the dustbin of history, is trying to make political gains by outflanking his opponents and problems on the domestic front and threatening a descent into political chaos – that is, an intifada-type confrontation.

3 http://www.dft.gov.ps/index.php?option=com_dataentry&pid=8&Itemid=27&des_id=1063Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi is a senior researcher
of the Middle East and radical Islam at the Jerusalem Center for Public
Affairs. He is a co-founder of the Orient Research Group Ltd.Source: http://jcpa.org/article/abbas-un-speech-and-the-unrest-in-jerusalem/Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Adnan Abu Hasna, an UNRWA
spokesman, suggested that donor countries, instead of contributions,
should be charged a compulsory annual fee.

The desire of the Palestinian political class is to
preserve the refugee problem at all costs, and not to resolve it in any
just way -- not in the Arab states and not in the Palestinian state that
will be established next to Israel.

It is therefore clear that the Palestinians refuse
to accept the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside the State
of Israel, and are not willing to agree to the return of the refugees to
the Palestinian state; their only objective is to destroy and displace
Israel.

If Israel is genuinely an "apartheid state," why do
its people accept Arabs as citizens, while our racist brother Arabs
refuse to?

Does anyone really think the Jews so stupid as to
believe that we Arabs, who slaughter one another without giving it a
second thought, will be particularly generous towards them if we succeed
in realizing the right of return to Palestine?

After the senseless agreement the world powers
signed with Iran -- an agreement that endangers Arab and Jew alike -- we
have to say plainly that the EU's demands on Israel to sign a
delusional peace agreement, which would only serve to endanger its
existence, are hypocritical at best, and that it is only natural that
Israel would refuse.

The only way to solve the problem of the Palestinian
refugees is to eliminate the toxic UNRWA, which keeps poisoning the
minds of our children with a hate leading to violence; for Arab states
to award citizenship to the Palestinians who have been living there for
decades anyhow; and to establish a totally demilitarized Palestinian
state alongside Israel.

At the beginning of August 2015, officials at the United Nations
Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)
announced they would be forced to make significant spending cuts because
of a $101 million budget deficit.

Adnan Abu Hasna, an UNRWA spokesman, claimed on Al-Jazeera at the
beginning of August that the cut would make it difficult to fulfill
UNRWA's mission, despite the deficit being only 17% of the agency's
total budget.

Abu Hasna protested that UNRWA functioned to resolve the problem of
the Palestinian refugees. UNRWA, he claimed, symbolically embodied the
international community's commitment to the Palestinian cause and the
return to Palestine.

Abu Hasna admitted that UNRWA is corrupt, but warned that lowering
its financial support, which would mean a cut of millions of dollars,
would be a blow to 5.5 million Palestinians, including half a million
school children (to whose schooling 80% of the agency's expenses were
dedicated).

Arab states have contributed generously to construction projects for
the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, but are not willing to invest in
helping the Palestinians themselves. This view often borders on
contempt, Abu Hasna charged, because the annual contribution of some
Arab states was a mere $1000 per capita. He also claimed that because
UNRWA's budget was not balanced every year, agency officials were never
sure if they would be able to fulfill their obligations. He therefore
suggested that donor countries, instead of contributions, should be
charged a compulsory annual fee.

Salman Abu Sitta, director of the London-based Palestine Land
Society, participated in the same Al-Jazeera interview. He alleged that
UNRWA's economic and political problems were a deliberate attempt to
destroy the agency, which is all that is left of UN Resolution 194
(regarding the return of the Palestinians to Palestine). He stressed, in
accordance with an Arabic principle of tawteen, that there would
be no granting Palestinian refugees citizenship in the Arab countries
in which they reside. Abu Sitta claimed that Israel was behind a plot to
destroy UNRWA, and was the obstacle to realizing the "right of return"
to the Palestinian territories by using the "Jewish lobby" in the United
States to exert pressure on UNRWA to close its doors. He also claimed
that even though the U.S. provided most of UNRWA's budget, it, too, was
party to the plot. He said that America's annual allotment to Israel was
$1000 per capita, but only $75 to the Palestinians. He demanded the
establishment of a Palestinian body which would demand the Palestinian
right of return, and publicize the failure of the Western states that
contributed very little but supported the State of Israel, in order to
embarrass them.

Abu Sitta ignored the question of the continued existence of the
State of Israel and said that the return of the Palestinians to their
land was a legitimate solution, one that was "the most assured, unique,
easy to accomplish and cheap." The countries of the world had previously
been committed to the "return," he continued, but had now altered their
positions and belonged to the "Zionist plot" to destroy the Palestinian
cause. The problem was not financial, he asserted, but rather one of
honoring the commitments of the UN. Resolution 194 dealt with the return
of the Palestinian refugees to their homes and it was the
responsibility of the world to finance them.

Ann
Dismorr (right), the Director of UNRWA in Lebanon, poses with a map
that erases the State of Israel and presents all of it as "Palestine."
(Image source: Palestinian Authority TV via Palestinian Media Watch)

Before the interview, there was a stormy argument, also on
al-Jazeera, between two Palestinian intellectuals, Dr. Hussein Ali
Shaaban, who supported the Palestinian Authority, and Dr. Ibrahim
Hamami, a physician, who supported Hamas. The issue was the granting of
passports [that is, citizenship] to Palestinian refugees in Arab states.
Dr. Shaaban was of the opinion that if the Arab states absorbed the
Palestinians as citizens with equal rights and responsibilities, it
would not negatively affect their right to return to Palestine, that is,
cities in Israel such as Haifa, Jaffa, Acre and Safed. It would only
serve to make their lives easier during their dispersal. Dr. Hamami
objected on the grounds that if the Palestinians became equal citizens
in the Arab states, their Palestinian identities would melt away and the
refugee problem would be solved without their return to the territory
of the "Zionist entity," which was absolutely necessary.

The argument, like the discussion of the UNRWA budget cuts, clearly
reflects the desire of the Palestinian political class to preserve the
refugee problem at all costs, and not to resolve it in any just way --
not in the Arab states, and not in the Palestinian state that will be
established next to Israel.

This argument reflects only a desire to cling to the loopy demand to
return to the territory of the State of Israel, while it completely
ignores the Jews' discourteous refusal to commit suicide.

Thus, the continued operation of UNRWA means perpetuating the refugee
problem, the conflict between the Palestinians and the Jews, and the
vanishing prospects for peace.

Others have also weighed in. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum claimed
that the international community was using financial excuses to
eliminate the Palestinian cause. Palestinian sources claimed the topic
was a political game, in which UNRWA was being used as a pawn to sweep
the Palestinian issue under the carpet and ignore the "right of return."
Ahmed Bahar, head of Hamas's legislative council, also claimed that the
Gaza Strip was "set to explode," and that the steps being taken by
UNRWA were "a dangerous blow to the Gaza Strip with far-reaching
political implications." He also claimed that UNRWA's steps were a clear
violation of UN resolutions, the UN charter, agreements concerning
refugee status and international law. He warned the donor states of the
negative consequences of cutting back on UNRWA's activities.

Dr. Fayiz Abu Shamala, writing in mid-August in "Filastin Line,"
claimed that a plot to close UNRWA meant the end of the Palestinian
issue, and that millions of Palestinian refugees had to march into
Zionist-occupied Palestine to destroy it.

It is therefore clear that the Palestinians refuse to accept the
establishment of a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel, and
are not willing to agree to the return of the refugees to a Palestinian
state; their only objective is to destroy and displace the country next
door.

Unfortunately, that underlying objective, common to most Palestinians
and Europeans, is also perfectly clear to the Israelis. But the
Israelis ignore the Palestinians as though they do not exist as anything
more than inconvenient numbers. If Israel is genuinely an apartheid
state, however, why do its people accept 1.7 million Arabs as citizens,
while our racist brother Arabs refuse to?

Does anyone really think the Jews are so stupid as to believe that
we, the Arabs who slaughter one another without giving it a second
thought, will be particularly generous towards them if we succeed in
realizing the right of return to Palestine?

After the senseless agreement the world powers signed with Iran -- an
agreement that endangers Arab and Jew alike -- we have to say plainly
that the EU's demands on Israel to sign a delusional peace agreement
that would only serve to endanger its existence -- are hypocritical at
best, and that it is only rational that Israel would refuse.

The only way to solve the problem of the Palestinian refugees is to
eliminate the toxic UNRWA, which keeps poisoning the minds of our
children with a hate leading to violence; for Arab states to award
citizenship to the Palestinians who have been living there for decades
anyhow; and to establish a totally demilitarized Palestinian state
alongside Israel.

Bassam Tawil is a scholar based in the Middle East.Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6371/eliminate-unrwa Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Courage
is the antidote to terror. If this type of response became more common,
potential terrorists may think twice before subjecting themselves to
the possible humiliation of being subdued and overcome by their intended
victims

During an interview of Dr. Ben Carson with Fox & Friends, the topic turned to the recent terror attack on Umpqua Community College and how one might behave if such a threat should arise. Among other things, Dr.Carson said "I would not just stand there and let him shoot me". This reaction is spot on, for at least two very good reasons; one targets the psychological aspect of terrorism, and the other targets the operational aspect.

What happens when people are willing to attack a terrorist and take the risk that on one hand, the resister may be the lone operative and be the first to die, but on the other hand, other people may join the effort to restrain or disable the attacker?

It seems to me that when that happens, when the would-be victims take positive action to confront and neutralize the attacker, the "terror" aspect, the very core of the attacker's motive, is neutralized. Courage is the antidote to terror. If this type of response became more common, potential terrorists may think twice before subjecting themselves to the possible humiliation of being subdued and overcome by their intended victims (and if we are talking about Muslim terrorists, humiliation is much worse than death). The other, operational aspect comes into play because if the attacker is busy struggling with a resister, other people can meanwhile escape (we are not all equipped, physically and emotionally for such a struggle), call for help or arm themselves with whatever is available and join the fight against the terrorist. This would usually result in limiting the number of casualties.

Granted, none of us really know what we would do if confronted by such a situation, especially if we have family members nearby. But we have some stellar examples to illustrate what can happen when the intended victims present a courageous response. Here is an example - a recent incident that occurred here in Israel, which would have been much worse had it not been for the fearless response of those who were present, especially one young man. There are actually many such examples in Israel, especially these days when terror has been on the rise.

We should all give some thought to what our values are and how we might react should we find ourselves facing such a challenge. Are we here, walking the Earth, simply to prolong our personal existence for as long as possible or are there things that are more important, even, than life itself - having the courage to act on solid values and stand up to terror, thus minimizing the danger to all.

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson told Fox News on Tuesday morning that he’d have taken a different approach if he had been approached by the Oregon shooter.

“Not only would I probably not cooperate with him, I would not just stand there and let him shoot me,” Carson told Fox & Friends on Tuesday in response to a question about how he’d have handled the gunman in a hypothetical situation. “I would say: ‘Hey, guys, everybody attack him! He may shoot me but he can’t get us all.'”

On Monday evening, before his appearance on Fox & Friends, Carson wrote a Facebook post on his thoughts about gun control. In the post, Carson says he remains against gun control, despite seeing “plenty of gun violence as a child.”

“There is no doubt that this senseless violence is breathtaking—but I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away,” he wrote.

What the United States and its Western allies
have wrought in the Middle East is as unholy as Russia’s resolve to
fight it is holy.

The
Christian Orthodox Church, which holds an important place in an
insurgent Russia, has described its government’s fight against the
Islamic State and other jihadi opposition groups in Syria as a “holy war.”

According to Vsevolod Chaplin, head of the Church’s Public Affairs Department:

The
fight with terrorism is a holy battle and today our country is perhaps
the most active force in the world fighting it. The Russian Federation
has made a responsible decision on the use of armed forces to defend the
People of Syria from the sorrows caused by the arbitrariness of
terrorists. Christians are suffering in the region with the kidnapping
of clerics and the destruction of churches. Muslims are suffering no
less.

This
is not some new gimmick to justify intervention in Syria. For years,
Russia’s Orthodox leaders have been voicing their concern for persecuted
Christians. Back in February 2012,
Vladimir Putin met with representatives of the Russian Orthodox
Church. They described to him the horrific treatment Christians are
experiencing around the world, especially the Muslim world:

The
head of External Church Relations, Metropolitan Illarion, said that
every five minutes one Christian was dying for his or her faith in some
part of the world, specifying that he was talking about such countries
as Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan and India. The cleric asked Putin to make the
protection of Christians one of the foreign policy directions in future.“This is how it will be, have no doubt,” Putin answered.

The Russian Patriarch Kirill even once wrote an impassioned letter to Obama,
imploring the American president to stop empowering
Christian-persecuting jihadis. That the patriarch said, “I am deeply
convinced that the countries which belong to the Christian civilization
bear a special responsibility for the fate of Christians in the Middle
East” must have only ensured that the letter ended in the trash bin at
the White House.

Of
course, Russian’s concern for Christian minorities will be cynically
dismissed in America by the major talking heads on both sides. While
such dismissals once resonated with Americans, they are becoming less
and less persuasive to those paying attention, as explained in “Putin’s Crusade—Is Russia the Last Defender of the Christian Faith?”

For
those of us who grew up in America being told that the godless
communist atheists in Russia were our enemies, the idea that America
might give up on God and Christianity while Russia embraces religion
might once have been difficult to accept. But by 2015, the everyday
signs in America show a growing contempt for Christianity, under the
first president whose very claims of being a Christian are
questionable. The exact opposite trend is happening for Russia and its
leaders—a return to Christian roots.

Indeed,
growing numbers of Americans who have no special love for Russia or
Orthodoxy – from billionaire tycoon Donald Trump to evangelical
Christians – are being won over by Putin’s frank talk.

How
can they not be? After one of his speeches praising the West’s
Christian heritage – a thing few American politicians dare do – Putin concluded
with something that must surely resonate with millions of traditional
Americans: “We must protect Russia from that which has destroyed
American society” – a reference to the anti-Christian liberalism and
licentiousness that have run amok in the West.

Even the Rev. Franklin Graham’s
response to Russia’s military intervention in Syria seems
uncharacteristically positive, coming as it is from the head of the
Billy Graham Evangelistic Association: “What Russia is doing may save
the lives of Christians in the Middle East[.] ... You understand that
the Syrian government … have protected Christians, they have protected
minorities from the Islamists.”

Should
U.S.-supported jihadis (“rebels”) succeed in toppling the government of
Syria, Graham correctly predicts that there will be “a bloodbath of
Christians”:

There
would be tens of thousands of Christians murdered and slaughtered and
on top of that, you would have hundreds of thousands of more refugees
pouring into Europe. So Russia right now, I see their presence as
helping to save the lives of Christians.

When
asked why the Obama administration is ignoring the persecution of
Christians, Graham, echoing Putin, said Obama is more invested in
promoting the homosexual agenda than he is in protecting Christian
minorities:

I’m
not here to bash the gays and lesbians and they certainly have rights
and I understand all of that, but this administration has been more
focused on that agenda than anything else. As a result, the Middle East
is burning and you have more refugees moving today since World War II.
It could have been prevented.

Indeed,
at day’s end, it is not Russian claims of waging a holy war to save
Christians from the sword of jihad that deserve to be cynically
dismissed, but rather every claim the Obama administration makes to
justify its support for the opposition in Syria (most of which is not
even Syrian).

There
are no “moderate rebels” – only committed jihadis eager to install
Islamic law, which is the antithesis of everything the West used to hold
precious. If the “evil dictator” Assad kills people in the context of
war, the “rebels” torture, maim, enslave, rape, behead, and crucify
people solely because they are Christian.

How does that make them preferable to Assad?

And,
based on established precedent – look to Iraq and Libya, the other
countries U.S. leadership helped “liberate” – the outcome of ousting the
secular strongman of Syria will be more atrocities, more Christian
persecution, more bombed churches and destroyed antiquities, and more
terrorism, including in the West, despite John Kerry’s absurd assurances of a “pluralistic” Syria once Assad is gone.

Thus, and once again, the U.S. finds itself on the side of Islamic terrorists, who always reserve their best for America. The Saudis – the head of the jihadi snake that U.S. presidents are wont to kiss and bow to – are already screaming bloody murder and calling for an increased jihad in Syria in response to Russia’s audacious call to holy war.

Will
Obama and the MSM comply, including through an increased propaganda
campaign? Top Islamic clerics like Yusuf Qaradawi – who once slipped on
live television by calling on America to wage “jihad for Allah” against Assad – seem to think so. Already the U.S. “welcomes” the new cruel joke that Saudi Arabia – one of the absolute worst human rights violators – will head a U.N. human rights panel.

At
day’s end and all realpolitik aside, there is no denying reality: what
the United States and its Western allies have wrought in the Middle East
– culminating in the rise of a bloodthirsty caliphate and the worst
atrocities of the 21st century – is as unholy as Russia’s resolve to
fight it is holy.

Listening to Islam in its own voice.

A few weeks back, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson
found himself deluged with mass hysteria when he dared to claim that
Islam and the American political tradition were incompatible.

I
noted at the time that Carson is correct, for Islam demands the
universal imposition of Sharia law and, thus, theocracy. This, or so I
naively thought, should suffice to show both how and why these two
perspectives are not only mutually incompatible, but systematically
incompatible.

Still, the self-declared nemeses of
“Islamophobia” (or is it enemies of Ben Carson?) continued to make all
manner of wildly ahistorical (albeit, politically-convenient) remarks,
with some going so far as to claim that Islam, “in its original manifestation,” was federalist or libertarian.

Let’s see about that.

Any comparison between Islam and the Constitution is a comparison of
two ideal types, two theoretical or intellectual stances. Such
comparisons have about as much to do with the miscellany of beliefs of
your average, everyday Muslim as they have to do with the miscellany of
beliefs of your average, everyday American.

In
order to know a thing or two about Islam, we must look, first and
foremost, toward the Quran. Moreover, we must do our best to approach
it from the vantage point, not of a contemporary Western ideologue who
is seeking to conscript it in the service of a contemporary agenda, but
of a devout Muslim.

The first thing of which to take note is
that, contrary to what many Westerners assume, the Quran is not the
Islamic equivalent of the Bible. As Islamic scholar Yusuf K. Ibish
says: “It [the Quran] is not a book in the ordinary sense, nor is it
comparable to the Bible, either the Old or New Testaments [.]” Rather,
the Quran is to Islam what Christ is to Christians: “Christ was the
expression of the Divine among men, the revelation of the Divine Will.”

“That is what the Qur’an is.”

The Quran self-identifies as the incarnation of the unaltered, uncorrupted Word of God. Observes Nasir Hyseni,
a Muslim convert to Christianity: “Even the Arabic language of the
Qu’ran is considered an integral part of Allah’s word[.]” Thus,
“Muslims consider the Islamic culture as of heavenly origin.”

This in turn means that Islam—which means complete, total submission to
God in all aspects of life—can permit no separation, even in theory,
between religion and government. It “is a political, cultural and
religious system,” Hyseni writes, of which religion is “a part.”
Religious teaching is “viewed in Islam as a preamble to Islamic law, the
Shariah” or “divine law.”

Fueling the belief that the Quran
is the self-expression of Allah’s will is the fact that, unlike the
Bible, the Quran lacks any narrative structure. This, however, also
creates interpretive difficulties. Yet the Quran itself supplies a key
to resolving these challenges: Muslims know it as the doctrine of
“abrogation”: “Whatever communications We abrogate or cause to be
forgotten, We bring one better than it or like it” (Sura 2: 106).

To put it simply, whenever a conflict arises between one Quranic
passage and a subsequent one, the latter is to supersede the former.

Hyseni quotes an Islamic scholar, Zamakshari, who says that the
earlier verse is “made to vanish” by God and is replaced by a new one
“whenever the well-being (maslaha) of (the community) requires” this.

The Quran’s teachings—its “surahs” or chapters—parallel the phases of the rise of Muhammad, the Prophet, to power.

In the first phase, Muhammad and his overwhelmingly outnumbered
band of disciples are chased from his hometown of Mecca when he
initially declares himself to be Allah’s messenger. At this juncture, he
implores his followers to refrain from “repel[ling] evil” with force.
Of course, any such endeavor on their part would have been, in effect,
suicidal.

The second phase occurs after Muhammad had fled
Mecca for Medina, a city some 300 miles away. While in Medina, Muhammad
manages to accumulate considerable power and influence, resources that
he is determined to deploy with an eye toward taking hold of the city
from which he was driven. Accordingly, the Quran’s teachings on
tolerance and war change:

“Fight in the cause of God those who fight you…[a]nd slay them wherever ye catch them[.]” (Sura 2:190).

At this point, it’s true that the Quran commands Muslims to fight
defensively. But once Muhammad and his army invade and seize command of
Mecca, these older teachings are abrogated:

“But when the
forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye
find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in
every stratagem (of war).”

However, “if they repent, and
establish regular prayers and practice regular charity [if they submit
to Islam], then open the way for them” (Sura 9:6).

It is worth
noting that while the Quran refers to Jews and Christians as “people of
the Book,” of the Bible, it nevertheless includes them among the
unbelievers upon whom Muslims must wage war.

“Fight those who
believe not in God nor the last day…even if they are people of the Book,
until they pay the jizya with willing submission” and “feel themselves
subdued” (Sura 9:29).

The “jizya” is the money, the tribute,
that non-Muslims had always been required to pay to their Muslim rulers
in exchange for being permitted to practice their own religion free from
harm or death.

Muhammad, the greatest of God’s prophets, the
messenger through whom God Himself expressed His will, was a conqueror.
The first biography of Muhammad (“The Life of Muhammad”), authored by Ibn Ishaq in the 8th
century, informs us of how after the members of one of the Jewish
tribes that Muhammad and his army besieged surrendered, “the apostle
went out to the market of Medina…and dug trenches in it. Then he sent
for them and struck off their heads in those trenches as they were
brought out to him in batches.”

Ibn Ishaq continues: “There were 600 or 700 in all, though some put the figure as high as 800 or 900.”

The women, children, and properties of the slain were then taken.

Quranic Islam is a seventh-century precursor to neither libertarianism
nor left-wing “progressivism” nor any other contemporary Western
ideology. It is what it is.

Unlike the comments of many of
Carson’s supporters and all of his critics, my remarks here are not
designed to either affirm or deny the value of Islam per se. Rather, by
listening to the Quran in something like its own voice, they are
intended to serve as an antidote to the PC bigotry that seems to
inevitably engulf current discussions of Islam.

And when we
actually step outside of our own present sensibilities, it becomes
clear—for many, just too painfully clear—that, considered theoretically,
Carson was correct: Islam and the Constitution (“liberal democracy”)
are systematically incompatible.Jack KerwickSource: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/260377/leftist-bigotry-vs-quranic-islam-jack-kerwick Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon condemned on Thursday the Israeli
“killings [of four Palestinians] and looks to the Government of Israel
to conduct a prompt and transparent investigation into the incidents,
including whether the use of force was proportional.”

Ban failed entirely to make any mention of Palestinian Authority
(PA) President Mahmoud Abbas’ calls to incitement, the recent PA
terrorist-murders of Israeli citizens, or really any of the Palestinian
Arab actions that have stoked the recent violence. He also failed to
call for the Palestinian Authority to investigate itself for the
terror-murders of Israeli citizens.

Ban began the statement by claiming he “is profoundly alarmed by the
growing number of deadly incidents in the West Bank, including East
Jerusalem.”

This is not surprising because Ban, in what many saw as a purposeful
disrespect, had failed to attend Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s UN
General Assembly speech last week, in which Netanyahu had starkly warned
that the Palestinian Authority was inciting the local Arabs to
violence.

And despite the recent terrorist-murders of four Israeli citizens,
Ban stated that “he does not believe that the demolition of Palestinian
[terrorists’] houses or the construction of new Israeli settlements on
occupied Palestinian land [i.e., Judea and Samaria] will do anything
other than inflame tensions still further.”

He equated the Palestinian terror-murders of Israeli citizens with
the Israeli forces protecting themselves from rioting Palestinians when
he said, “the escalation of violent incidents underscores the need for
urgent action by both sides.”

In conclusion, Ban repeated what now has become the “two-state”
mantra as a solution to the Palestinian Arab violence when he stated,
“the Secretary-General reiterates the United Nations readiness to work
with all parties to create the conditions on the ground, in the region
and internationally, for a political horizon including meaningful
negotiations towards a two-state solution.”Mark LangfanSource: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/201603#.VhbB4yuzdds Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

One of the central claims of Islam is on very shaky ground lately – and it could get people killed.

Given
the way the Mideast is headed, things are so unpredictable that this
present Jerusalem flare-up could run the gamut from burning itself out
in a few days to inciting a war against Israel, eventually bringing in
Iran, the Muslim world, and then the whole world. The Arabs claim it is
an Intifada, the Arabic word for resistance – but what is enormously
troubling is the fallacy behind it.

Fueling
much of this Arab fury is a renewed Jewish presence on the al-Aqsa
Mosque compound. Over the past two years, Jews have started to gather
outside al-Aqsa, and the Muslims see it as a land grab. Jews see it as
reasserting their rights to worship on their sacred Temple area.

Even secular Israeli Jews have questioned whether these Jews should be allowed on the formerly Jew-free area. It only stirs up the Arabs.

Islam
claims that, during his lifetime, Mohammed took a night journey on a
flying steed, called al Buraq, to Jerusalem to the Farthest (al-Aqsa)
Mosque. The irony is that, according to Muslim sources, there was no
mosque in Jerusalem for Mohammed to visit. So why are they fighting
over what never was?

Official
Muslim history says Mohammed died in 632 AD – if one uses the Islamic
calendar, the year 10. Of this, there is no debate among imams,
mullahs, Shi'a, Sunni, Wahhabi, Sufi, etc. By every account, Western or
Islamic, Arab armies did not reach Byzantine Roman Christian Jerusalem
until 636 AD of our calendar, to immediately set a siege. The Arabs did
not enter in until 637 AD, when Christians finally surrendered the
city.

Almost five years after Mohammed's death. Five years!

Even
were one to accept Islam, there were no mosques in Jerusalem until
after Mohammed's death. Whenever and wherever Mohammed made his night
journey, al-Aqsa could not have been in Jerusalem.

This is only if one accepts Islam. If one does not accept Islam, the story unravels even further.

Western deconstructionists now question the very existence of Islam's Mohammed. The British historian Tom Holland and America's Robert Spencer
have done masterful jobs pointing out that the Mohammed of the Koran is
a collection of biographic myths, appended centuries later. The
Christian apologist Jay Smith has made a career of deflating Islamic claims. All three trace the legends of Mohammed back to the fertile imagination of Abd al Malik, the fifth caliph of the new Arab Empire – an empire that did not even call itself Muslim originally.

Was there even a Mohammed?

Probably!
But the Koran exaggerates and inflates his life. And his teachings?
In fact, much of Koranic doctrine can be traced to then centuries-old Gnostic texts that arose after the birth of Christianity.

That
is it. Soon after Christianity started, counterfeit Gnostic gospels
arose in the second century. These were discredited early on by the
Church, but the ridiculous legends remained floating around among the
Arabs. Mohammed plagiarized from counterfeits for his own political
motives. Hence, the Koran, rather than being revealed wisdom from God,
was rather a bastardized recompilation of earlier counterfeits, which
Mohammed jumbled for his own ends. What astounds us is that Mohammed
used such ridiculous sources to counterfeit from.

Further
aggravating this are the Koranic references to Mecca that have been
shown could apply only to the Nabateans in Petra. The Koran mentions
olives, which do not grow in Mecca. The earliest mosques pointed to Petra, not Mecca.

Did
Mohammed exist? If he did, was Mohammed from Petra, or did he borrow
Petra sources? We know he borrowed from the Gnostics. And why doesn't
Mecca show up on any maps until 900 AD?

But now, for the absolute coup de grace:

The 'Birmingham Koran' fragment that could shake Islam after carbon-dating suggests it is OLDER than the Prophet Muhammad[.]

Islam, and its prophet, may be a total fraud.

Of
course, a lot of this is arcane stuff. The average Westerner is not
going to learn Arabic, nor its myriad ancient dialects, to source this
myth out. Nor, for that matter, will the modern Muslim.

But
a Muslim can be asked this one simple question. If official Muslim
history says Islam entered into Jerusalem during Mohammed's lifetime,
how could al-Aqsa (The Farthest Mosque) possibly be in Jerusalem? How
could Mohammed visit a mosque that did not exist?

Concerning religion, one can argue whether Buddism's Mahabodhi Temple
bears a real connection to the Budda or is primarily a British
reconstruction, but Buddism does not rise or fall based on the Mahabodhi
Temple. Catholicism does not require Rome; during the 14th century,
the pope was based in France. Eastern Christianity does not require
Constantinople. Protestantism does not require Geneva.

But
Islam's claim to al-Aqsa requires that a mosque existed in Jerusalem
during Mohammed's lifetime. Muslims even admit that the present al-Aqsa
site was originally built in 705 AD, over seventy years after
Mohammed's death. Islam has a real problem. Their own history
contradicts their claim.

The
mosque on the Temple Mount should therefore be referred to as "the
Southern Mosque," given its location on the Temple Mount at the southern
end. No one should indulge this Islamic error. Media commentators
should be called out for even saying "al-Aqsa" at all. Every Muslim
must hear the truth – if not from their leaders, then from the West.

People
are being killed over this, and I mourn no less for passionate but
deceived Arab youth, being sent off to die for an outright lie by a
leadership that has to know the truth, than for Jews being denied access
to their Temple space, or being killed for asserting their rights.

This
al-Aqsa lie has the potential of going very bad, very fast, to inflame
the whole world. We are seeing it flare up right now. The myth has to
be shut down immediately. Fortunately, Islam's own history can be used
as evidence.

Further notes:
The lie of Islam goes much deeper than al-Aqsa. There is evidence that
the whole religion was concocted decades after the real Mohammed's
death from sources that pre-existed Mohammed, who may have been a
deluded tribal leader.

For further instruction, I recommend these videos which can be view in one evening:

Mike Konrad is the pen name of an American who is neither Jewish, Latin, nor Arab. He runs a website, http://latinarabia.com, where he discusses the subculture of Arabs in Latin America. He wishes his Spanish were better.

"No one should be allowed to spread hateful
and violent propaganda, the results of which we experience every day,"
says a statement released by the Foreign Ministry after approaching
Facebook and YouTube to remove incitement videos.

Deputy Foreign Minister
Tzipi Hotovely

|

Photo credit: AP

The Foreign Ministry's communications
department has contacted social media websites Facebook and YouTube,
demanding that Palestinian videos inciting to violence against Israelis
be removed.

"This encouragement to attack Jews, which
creates a supportive environment for hatred and violence, is
unacceptable," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"No one should be allowed to spread hateful
and violent propaganda, the results of which we experience every day,
unfortunately."

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely on
Wednesday called a meeting for all Foreign Ministry management,
including Foreign Ministry Director General Dore Gold, to discuss the
recent wave of terrorist attacks.

At the meeting, officials discussed concrete steps to be taken against Palestinian incitement.

Ultimately, it was decided to establish an
inter-ministerial team that will create a serious of videos explaining
the issue of Palestinian incitement. The team will also plan ways to
address the European parliament and U.S. Congress about cutting funding
to the Palestinian Authority as long as incitement continues.

The Zionist Union released a statement
criticizing the Foreign Ministry's plans: "You fight terrorists with
clear policy on the ground, not with a war on online videos. Terrorism
in the streets is out of control and the government's response is to
create a Facebook team."

Meanwhile, terrorist group Hamas has released
another "hit" music video in Hebrew, to follow up their song "Attack!
Carry out terror strikes!" which became popular online during Operation
Protective Edge in summer 2014.

The latest video is set to the tune of "He Who
Believes Does Not Fear," a famous song by leading Israeli singer Eyal
Golan, and is titled "The Soldiers of God."

Singing in Hebrew to a video showing terrorist
strikes carried out against Israelis, the Hamas members say, "We are
soldiers of God and we were sent to wipe out the Zionists."